diary of an Endorphin Junkie

My ex500 is finally in Zoran's hands (where it should have been to start with) so I had to either cancel my Infineon trackday or take my street bike. Since I really need the Infineon time, I chose to take my street sv650 and just go slow, enjoy myself. I set myself a target time of 2:10 per lap.

It was especially important that I use my feet properly and get my weight off the bars, as per Craig Weirman's suggestion.

So I found someone who was just-a-little-frustrating and starting chasing him through the pack, around the slower riders. Glanced up when running down the straight and realized we'd just put in a 2:04 lap. Huh. My best lap EVER here was only a second faster.

So the next session I went out just to practice. Got out early and had an empty track, got to focus on lines and such. In fact, I did this every session for the rest of the day, and didn't get caught up in too many chases. This is good, because I have trouble not chasing people down.

But the last session of the day, I was feeling really good - doing every corner correctly with the new style, feeling confident. And did 4 laps in a row with solid 2:02s. That's a full second faster than I've ever gone at Infineon, and I was cruising.

So apparently, the difference between "cruising" and "racing" ain't much for me. I only got one speed...

So when I bought the Odyssey I was very happy with the steering wheel controls, and figured that the stock CD player would be good. My needs are simple, right? Well, somewhere in my brain I had forgotten that straight-up CD players don't play MP3 discs. Ouch. This one did handle CD-R discs quite well, but still...

The final nail in the coffin was Energy 92.7 announcing that they were going "all nineties". Energy 92.7 is the only radio station that I was likely to hear something I enjoyed on. Hell, it's the only radio station in the bay area with a greater than 1:1 music/commercial ratio, so you could say "hear music on" and be valid. But all nineties? Ugh. Time to give up on terrestrial radio.

So I got the Alpine 9857 head unit, the interface for my steering wheel controls, the Sirius satellite connector, and the I-Pod adapter installed by Bay Stereo in Mountain View.

Sweet. I hate paying for music, but at least I don't have to listen to DJs bitch and whine about the warts on their toes any more.